How The Digest System Works
Each case published in a West reporter is evaluated by an editor who identifies the points of law cited or explained in the case. The editor places the summaries of the points of law covered in the case at the beginning of the case. These summaries are usually a paragraph long, and are called headnotes. Each headnote is then assigned a topic and key number. The headnotes are arranged according to their topic and key number in multi-volume sets of books called Digests. A digest serves as a subject index to the case law published in West reporters. Headnotes are merely editorial guides to the points of law discussed or used in the cases, and the headnotes themselves are not legal authority.
West publishes West's Analysis of American Law, which is a complete guide to the topic and key number system, and it is revised periodically.
Read more about this topic: West American Digest System
Famous quotes containing the words digest, system and/or works:
“For I pray that God will digest me.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.”
—Bible: New Testament, Galatians 2:15-16.